Donate or Landfill? A St. Louis Guide to Old Books
Quick answer: Most old books in St. Louis are still worth passing forward, musty ones included. Give My Books Network collects donated books free from doorsteps citywide, and only books that are mold-damaged, water-swollen, or coming apart are genuinely past saving. When you are unsure, put them in the box and let a Local Pick-Up Partner sort it.
Which Old Books Are Still Worth Passing Forward?
Nearly every old book is still worth passing forward, including titles with yellowed pages, cracked spines, faded jackets, and the faint basement smell that comes standard in St. Louis.
Age is not damage. A 1968 hardcover with a foxed page edge is a perfectly good book. So is a paperback that has been read four times and looks it. Somebody will read it again, and a Local Pick-Up Partner, meaning the locally owned family business that does the collecting, knows how to find them.
Which Books Really Are Past Saving?
Only books that are mold-damaged, water-swollen, missing pages, or coming apart in your hands are genuinely past saving and belong in a landfill rather than a donation box.
- Visible mold — a fuzzy black, green, or white bloom along the page edges or the spine.
- Swollen, wavy covers that will not close flat.
- A smell that reaches you before you open the box.
- Pages that separate from the binding when you lift the book.
- Water stains that have spread all the way through the text block.
One warning worth taking seriously: mold spreads. A single bloomed hardcover will take the rest of the box with it. Pull it out and keep it separate.
The St. Louis Basement Test
Carry the box up to the kitchen table and open it in daylight, because a basement is the worst possible place to judge whether a book is still good.
Nearly every brick house here has a full one, and nearly every one of them is damp. After a wet summer, a box that has been sitting on a Bevo Mill basement floor since the Clinton administration will smell like a cave whether or not the books inside are actually harmed. Musty is not the same as ruined. Under a kitchen light you can tell the difference in about ten seconds.
Books St. Louis Donors Wrongly Assume Are Worthless
Textbooks, encyclopedia sets, and book club editions get written off constantly, and they are among the most useful books a Local Pick-Up Partner collects.
- Textbooks — even an old edition. Homeschool families and tutoring programs use them hard.
- Encyclopedias — complete sets still move, and classrooms still request them.
- Book club editions — not collectible, entirely readable, priced to sell.
- Mass-market paperbacks — the workhorse of every community sale in the city.
- Cookbooks and manuals — the ones buyers actually hunt for.
Libraries decline most of these for reasons of shelf space rather than quality, and the American Library Association's notes on book donation programs lays out the arithmetic. A branch saying no does not mean the book is finished.
How Free Pickup in St. Louis Handles the Sorting for You
Give My Books Network sends a Local Pick-Up Partner to your door to collect donated books free of charge, then sorts everything offsite so you never have to make the close calls yourself.
Pack the boxes yourself, in advance. The partner does not bring boxes. Set them out by 8 AM on your service day in a dry, covered spot, the covered front porch being the standard around here. Collection runs 8 AM to 8 PM, and you do not need to be home.
What Happens to the Books That Cannot Be Saved?
Books that cannot be read, resold, or redistributed may eventually be recycled, as a last resort rather than a default.
Everything else has somewhere to go. Many items are redistributed through the Give ME Books program to schools, libraries, literacy programs, and senior centers. Some are resold by the partner, which is what funds the free collection. Give My Books Network and its partners are family businesses, not 501(c)(3) nonprofits, so there is no tax receipt, and we would rather say that now than let you find out later.
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